The generation, execution and inhibition of motor intention: an ERP study / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate neural correlates of the generation,execution and inhibition of motor intention. Methods Behavioral performance and event-related potentials (ERP) of 14 participants were recorded when they performed a two-staged Go-Nogo task. At the stage of intention preparation,three kinds of the "what" cues were presented separately to the participants: (1) to press a response key by the left or the right hand (the instructed) ,(2) to decide freely which hand will be used (the free) ,(3) to wait for the second cue (the control). At the stage of intention execution,the "whether" cue suggested the participants execute (Go) or withdraw (Nogo) the previous intention either voluntarily or forcedly. Results The interaction effect between the "what" and the "whether" was significant(F(2,26) = 8.262, P=0.002). The forced responses were faster than those of voluntary action under both the instructed condition ((468.52 ±105.87)ms vs (546.67 ±146.33)ms) and the control condition ((536.78 ± 83.28) ms vs (589.75 ± 140.80) ms). No significant difference was found for the free condition((538.71 ± 127. 39) ms vs (561. 44 ± 146. 51) ms). At the stage of intention preparation,significant ERP effects between the instructed intention and the freely intention were revealed in bilateral frontal regions (150～200 ms) , frontoparietal area (300～700 ms)and right temporal area. At the stage of intention execution,ERP effects between voluntary inhibition and voluntary action were observed in left prefrontal area (160～220 ms) ,fro-nto-cento-parietal area and right frontoparietal area. (300～550 ms). Conclusion The motor intention may be generated in the prefrontal area and maintained in the frontoparietal network. The left prefrontal and fronto-centro-parietal areas inhibit intention in the early stage and the right frontoparietal area involves response inhibition lately.